


Remembrance

by apostate (394percentdone)



Series: Tales of a Tabris [7]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: M/M, Memorials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 20:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17086799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/394percentdone/pseuds/apostate
Summary: A memorial is erected in the memory of the Hero of Ferelden, six years after the blight Zevran finally visits.





	Remembrance

**Author's Note:**

> based on Remington-zero's beautiful comic which you can find here: http://remington-zero.tumblr.com/post/100222430930/heres-to-us-what-was-and-what-could-have-been it's amazing and will make you cry
> 
> this isn't their canon, but it takes place in the same au as Fin

The sky is bright above him, clear brilliant blue with clouds perfect for gazing. A bottle of fine wine in his hand, a bouquet in the other. Carnations blooming pink, dark purple chrysanthemums, a single red rose. Dawning sunlight, gold and dusty pink air as Zevran walks down the street, still too early for anyone except bakers to be awake. And no one really walks this street except for pilgrims anyway. 

It has been years since he was here last. Six of them,  in fact. Each one a lifetime, each one a counted in a series of heartbeats. A smile on Zevran’s face as he continues his treck, it has been far too long since he was here last. Finally able to make his way back, to accept the truth of the place here once he leaves once more. A visit and homecoming. 

Ahead of him, the dawn touches a garden, caresses the green leaves and the white petals. Greets the large statue raised in the garden’s middle. It’s back is to him, a face he knows better than his own looking towards the rising sun. For the first time, Zevran falters. His steps halting on the cobblestones as inside his chest the heart he thought healed enough shatters all over again. 

It’s a different kind of ache now. Time mending the ragged edges of him, smoothing them, turning them from the all-consuming grief into a tender acceptance. He can still see it, sometimes, when the nights are long and his sheets are too cold on the other side of his bed. The way Ellanis would smile right before he kissed him, or how his fingers fit between Zevran’s like they were made to, or in his infuriating, damning selflessness and desire to protect those he could at any cost. 

The last time he told Zevran he loved him, right before breaking away and charging the archdemon by himself -fury and power and enough but not quite. 

Zevran’s smile wavers, a hiccup in his breath. Thinks instead of the first time Ellanis told him he loves him, in a moment fueled with recklessness and confusion and maybe hope he wouldn’t be alone. The way his laughter leaked into their first kiss. Finds it in the mended shards of his heart to keep moving forward.

He's nearly there now, the shadow cast by the statue in the middle of the garden hiding him from the golden dawn. Drags his fingertips through the lilies surrounding it, protecting it. Their soft white petals glowing as he takes a deep breath of the sweet air. Holds that breath in his chest -six years, six lifetimes since he’s been here and not once has he looked at the face of the statue they raised in honor.

But he does now. 

Stone features, heroic expression. Hands gripped around a cane that doubles as a mage’s staff. His amor stipped of all the things Zevran loves about him. There is no smile, no light in his carved eyes. The life of him, the vibrancy, those were lost six years ago when Zevran held Ellanis in his arms for the last time. Somehow, it makes it easier. 

To know  _his_ Ellanis is not trapped here, to know his amor is kept only in his memories now loosens something lodged in the depths of his chest. An aching grief he’s carried for so long lifts, and Zevran laughs. Maybe too high, and maybe too rough, but laughter all the same. 

Places his wine and his bouquet on the statue’s base, jumps up to sit and lean back against the legs of it. The tip of his head not even reaching the top of the statue’s boots, but Zevran simply closes his eyes and rests his head against the cool stone. 

“It’s been a long time no? You must have missed me terribly.” Sunlight turning the inside of his eyelids burnt gold, a light he can’t ignore. “It is a long way from Antiva City you know, and I am a busy man these days. Did you hear the Crows are looking for some mystery assassin taking them down?” Zevran chuckles around the burn in his throat and in the back of his eyes. “You’re talking to the one and only Black Shadow, they are terrified. You should have seen it." 

Doesn’t try to stop the tears welling, opens his eyes to the dawn and pops open the wine. Pours some of the rich red out to the ground to mingle with the salt of his tears as they fall together. "You should have seen it.”

“I have missed you so much, my love.”

Looks to the sky, to the clear expanse of blue which reaches and stretches forever. Clouds blurred, tinged pink and Zevran thinks of the time Ellanis pulled him into a meadow and told him of all the shapes he could see in the clouds above them. Smiles even though his hands tremble. 

Zevran watches as the sun rises over Denerim fully, sits at the feet of his amor until he can no longer feel his legs. He cannon linger here, should not want to dwell where Ellanis would tell him to move on. Tells himself one day of remembrance will not hurt.


End file.
